Nerve Damage
by Leikiz
Summary: Mercy examines Genji's latest training injury, going through tests to make sure his sense of touch is still intact. At least, that's what she tells him. (Mercy x Genji) (Talon!Mercy)


"Tell me where it hurts."

Shimada lifted his right hand. "It is not painful. It is… numb? Damage during training." His fingers opened and closed, formed a fist. "Feels clumsy."

"I see. That will be a priority for today then. Are there any other spots like this?"

He looked like he was about to shake his head, but then paused. "I am unsure. Hard to tell. So much of- of _this_ is different. I do not know how it is supposed to feel."

Angela gave him a gentle smile. "That will take time. Getting your body into working order will be the first steps."

She pressed two fingers to the seam on Genji's forearm. "You said the issue was here?" There was a line where synthetic flesh met the metal surface of his shuriken launcher. Normally, there would be layers of armor plating over it, and the rest of him, but that was for battle. They'd be in the way. Now, he was peeled, layers pulled away and discarded so that she could examine him.

It was rare to see his face anymore. His eyes were had been among the replacements, and the cybernetics blues were watching her, following the motion of her hands across his arm.

Angela prodded gently, touching spots on his arm, moving along as he indicated yes or no. "Here? No. More along this side? I see."

Her hands dropped to his, taking his fingers one by one, curling them gently. "Stiff, numb, or pain?"

Genji finally settled on the issue being in his thumb, index, and middle.

"Ah." Angela tapped a spot just above his wrist. "I think I know. The shuriken feeder probably knocked into the ventral nerve feed. Lay back on the table for me, _bitte_."

Genji sighed and lay back. She tugged his arm to one side, perpendicular to his body, and settled it on a stand.

"I'm going to disconnect this part so I can work without it hurting you."

"Fine." His glare was hawklike. Genji, of course, would hate her taking him apart like a puzzle.

The computer console was already hooked up to his central chassis. It was the work of only a second to find the diagnostic maps, select his right arm, and deactivate it.

Genji hissed.

"Painful?" she asked.

" _Gone_."

He shifted on the table, looking at his arm in distaste. The limb was limp, fingers curled slightly inward like a dead insect.

Angela shifted it, then tapped the computer command to open the underlayer. The nanofiber split, a seam forming from nothing as the material rewrote its shape to comply. Sure enough, her diagnosis of his damage was correct. It took some fiddling, but she reset the position of the feeder before applying nanopaste to the malfunctioning circuits.

Her creation, her paste, was as malleable as clay. A command, a nudge from the computer, and it melded into the circuits, repairing and rebuilding in seconds.

"Give me five years, and I'll have you regenerating on your own, just like this," she mused.

"I'd rather you just regrow my body," he said very softly.

Angela stopped, her hands hovering over the keyboard. She sighed, turning to look at him. "That will not be possible at this time. It- let me finish, please." She held up a hand, forestalling his interruption. "What do you know about biotech research?"

"Less than you, I imagine."

Angela gave him a thin smile before returning to the console. A few passes over the keys, and Genji's arm began resealing itself. The nanofiber closed without seam, reforming into a singular, unmarred surface.

"This will sting."

Genji grit his teeth, and she reconnected his arm. The limb jerked, fingers spasming and convulsing for a moment before forming a fist.

"Are we done?" he said, voice hoarse.

"Not quite."

Angela turned away and went to her cabinet. She rummaged for a moment before coming back with the necessary tool. The device was incongruous, a small, bright green rubber ball, studded with little points.

"We need to make sure the nerves are connected properly. I roll this along your arm, and you tell where where the feeling stops. Or if it feels wrong."

Genji's arms had not originally been cybernetic. Not both of them. There had been more of the left remaining than the right. But there had been issues with weight and balance early on in testing, and she'd finally just amputated and replaced the entirety of both with machinery to settle it. Easier that way.

His right was made of the same grayish material as the rest of his underlayer. Beneath the carapace of his armor was a reinforced layer of fibrous nano-mesh. It did not feel quite like skin to the touch- more like silk, but it was thin enough that she'd been able to work in a full suite of nerve sensors. Touch, pressure, temperature, friction. A ninja's hands were his livelihood. As a surgeon, that, she could appreciate.

Angela began rolling the ball along his fingers. "You were asking about biotech."

Genji nodded, his gaze following the ball once more.

"I am a surgeon. My work mixes biotic and nanite technology to regenerate form. But it does not create. It could, given time and research."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "You have both." He jerked a head at the technological paradise that was the Overwatch medbay.

"I do. Any issues with the feeling? No? Temperature is good?" Genji jerked as she took the ball away and pressed her fingers to his palm. Trimmed nails and cool fingers ghosted along surface of his hand, tracing where the life line would be on a human palm.

Angela smirked up at him. "The anecdote about doctors and cold hands holds true, I am afraid."

He was stiff, his posture rigid, but he didn't pull away. Angela gauged his reaction, not stopping her exploration of his palm. She didn't have to guess to know this was the first human contact he'd had with anyone in quite some time. Shimada was supposedly quite the ladies man in his past life, and the look in his eyes as she held his hand was almost _hungry_.

"Something wrong?" she said.

"N-no." He looked away. "Continue talking."

"I have money, resources, and support," Angela said. She ended her contact with him, not missing the way his hand followed hers for just an instant as she pulled away. "But I also have limits. These things come with strings."

She returned to the ball, beginning at his wrist. The seam of flesh to metal, and his weapons attachments, she left alone, save to palpate them to make sure they were settled properly. There was no real sense in probing them with the ball- he had no sensation there. Just the vague pressure identified by the sensors in his skin, like something pressing on a fingernail.

Genji shifted as she nudged the piece of his arm where the armor plating would sit.

"Pain?"

"No." His gaze dropped. "It feels strange. Like it is a part of me, but not. But… none of this is a part of me."

"It feels out of place."

"Yes."

She rolled the ball across the area she'd repaired. "Good?"

"Fine."

"Working for Overwatch comes with rules," she said softly. "We answer to Jack, and he answers to the UN. And if the UN decided at some point after the Omnic Crisis, that one disaster averted was enough, and banned any advanced biotech research, we would have to follow those standards."

"What?!" Genji jerked forward, nearly rising off the table entirely. "Why?"

"Cloning." Angela set the ball on the table, pausing in her examination to meet his eyes. "If we created omnics and they turned on us, what would happen if cloning and biotech were allowed to advance to create new life?"

"That's- that's insane," he hissed.

"It is cowardice." Angela pressed her fingers to the nanofiber of his inner arm. Silken skin passed beneath her fingers. "And that is why we are stuck using prosthetics and cybernetics."

Genji swore. She did not know the word, it was in his native tongue, but he said it in the tone used for epithets. "Insane. I'm _stuck_ in this thing because they're afraid. So worried about something that they've damned me to this shell."

"Genji," Angela said. "Genji, look at me." She rose. Her hands moved from forearm to elbow to shoulder to chin. His was stubbled, just enough of his skin left for a beard shadow before the underlayer replaced his neck. Angela brushed her fingers through it.

His skin was warm. He stared at her.

"You are you. No matter how much of you is machine, the components that matter are here."

A single finger pressed to his forehead.

"Please know that I have given you nothing I would not have myself."

Genji frowned at that. "What?"

"You are _better_ now," she whispered. She followed the seam. Stubbled chin became underlayer and carapace. Cool and smooth. Impenetrable. The faint vibration of the pump system that had replaced his heart thrummed through her fingertips.

"It will not be this generation, but once I have you finalized, I will begin converting myself."

He was still staring.

"I could grow you a new arm, were I allowed. But I can build a better one. Everything I know about physiology and nanotech combined, all the gain and none of the flaws. That is the purpose of cybernetics." She pressed closer to him, stepping between his legs to stand nearly chest to chest with him. "Does this really feel any different?" Her hands across his again. Her breath against his neck.

Interesting to see how his face flushed. Angela wondered briefly how this would have played out had she removed his sex drive like she'd originally planned to, and decided that this was much more fun. All this human passion in a machine's shell. Shimada might just burst out of his skin.

"I've taken the first steps already."

She took his hands and drew them to the small of her back.

Genji gasped. "I thought- but the suit?"

His hands probed this time, following the links of her spine up, pressing to feel them through her coat and shirt. Angela shivered, pressing just a little closer to him with each vertebrae.

"Cybernetic. Full spinal replacement." She rolled her shoulders meaningfully, and he took the hint to touch there. The implant branched over her shoulder blades, fanning out for a series of ports that would, in combat, accept the wings of her Valkyrie suit.

"The suit is mostly power sources and armor. With this though, I can be one with it. My reflexes more. Faster."

His grip on her shoulders tightened, pulling them together fully now. His chest was firm, his arms encompassing. His fingers were tracing now, crossing the seams where metal met flesh, contouring the muscles in her back and shoulders.

Angela looked up, her breath heavy. "Is this embrace really any different than any before?"

Genji met her eyes. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Grimaced. "I- it is- confusing."

Slowly, Angela slid his hands away from her and stepped back. "It is overwhelming," she said. "Why don't we leave it there for today?"

His eyes widened. A flurry of emotions crossed his face, almost breathtakingly rich. He wasn't used to having his face exposed. It took away that stoic air of his.

Surprise. Shock. Hurt. Need. Longing. Confusion. Need. Frustration.

She wanted to see more. More of this. Genji's face, all twisted and wanting.

"I do not want to push too hard," Angela said gently. "Or go too fast. You said yourself that this was something you needed to get used to."

He nodded jerkily. "Yes..."

Shimada rose from the examination table slowly. His head was down, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

"Get some rest, Genji. We can pick this up another time."

His head jerked up, and she smiled at him.

That burst of expressions again. Surprise. Hope. Want. _Need_.

He was still looking over his shoulder at her even as he stumbled toward the door.

It hissed shut behind him, Angela waited thirty seconds, and then locked it.

She sank back into her office chair.

The laughter came, rich and easy.

This project had turned out infinitely more amusing than she'd imagined. Her aim to create her own superman, a demonstration of the cybernetic conversion techniques she was honing, had become something more. He was her _opus._ They'd asked her to save his life, and she'd made him art.

She was going to keep modifying him until he was perfect, and only then would she turn the knife on herself. Overwatch's resources and money turned toward the aims of Talon's greatest scientist.

In the mean time… she didn't need any surgery or mods to get Genji to become hers. His body already was.

His mind would follow in time.

XXX

That's right. Yandere!Talon!Mercy. This is about as close to romance as I can get.

Came directly out reading a fic where Mercy was with Talon, and had this creepy ass sort of stockholm relationship with her Genji, and from another where it played with her having the spine attachments from her suit as cybernetics.


End file.
